All official European Union website addresses are in the europa.eu domain.
See all EU institutions and bodiesDo something for our planet, print this page only if needed. Even a small action can make an enormous difference when millions of people do it!
Indicator Assessment
The RAINS* model provides information about the projections for the methane emissions. For the "current legislation" scenario a continued increase of global anthropogenic CH4 emissions is expected, leading to 35 percent increase in 2030 as compared to 2000. CH4 emissions from all sectors are expected to grow due to increased economic activities and absence of wide-spread emission control measures. In Western Europe and Newly Independent states overall CH4 emissions will only slightly increase.
If all maximum technically feasible reductions (MFR scenario) were applied to the full extent, global CH4 emissions would stabilize up to 2030, though at considerable costs. Under the MFR scenario CH4 emissions in Western Europe and Newly Independent states would be able to decrease on 31% and 16% relatively.
It is expected that in Western Europe CH4 emissions could reach 23.5 million tons (3% higher than in 2000) and in Newly Independent countries - 48.6 million tons (10 % higher than in 2000). Overall, emissions from all sectors are expected to grow due to increased economic activities and absence of wide-spread emission control measures.
*the assessment was done in Dec 2006 based on the RAINS model a predecessor of GAINS model and includes only GH4 emissions. A new GAINS model calculates all six GHG emissions and provides a wider range of scenarios.
Definition: This indicator illustrates the projected trends in national emissions of all greenhouse gases emissions for a selected scenario (combination of energy pathway and emissions control strategy), including current policy legislation and optimized scenarios. Greenhouse Gasses include carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), perflourocarbons (PFCs), hydroflourocarbons (HFCs) and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6).
The indicator also provides information on emissions from the main greenhouse gas emitting sectors: energy supply and use (including energy industry, fugitive emissions, energy use by industry and by other sectors); transport; industry (processes); agriculture; waste and other (non-energy).
Model used: GAINS/RAINS, EMEP
Ownership: International Institute for Applied Systems
Temporal coverage: 1990 - 2030
Geographical coverage: EU-27: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, Cyprus, Czech republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia; By country: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Check Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany. Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal. Republic of Moldova, Romania. Russian Federation, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Swetzerland, TFYR of Mathedonia, Turkey, Ukriane, United Kingdom
million tons of CO2 equivalents
Over a decade ago, most countries joined an international treaty -- the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) -- to begin to consider what can be done to reduce global warming and to cope with whatever temperature increases are inevitable. Recently, a number of nations have approved an addition to the treaty: the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol, an international and legally binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gases emissions world wide, entered into force on February 16th 2005. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol shares the Convention's objective, principles and institutions, but significantly strengthens the Convention by committing Annex I Parties to individual, legally-binding targets to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
To date most countries in the Pan-European region ratified the Kyoto Protocol, notably: Annex I: Belarus, Croatia, Russian Federation, Ukraine, EU 27, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstien, Switzerland. Non-Annex I countries: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazhakhstan, Former Yugoslavian Republic Macedonia, Montenegro, Republic of Moldova, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
31 countries and the EEC are required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions below levels specified for each of them in the treaty. The Individual Targets for Annex I Parties are listed in the Kyoto Protocol's Annex B. These add up to a total cut in greenhouse-gas emissions of at least 5% from 1990 levels in the commitment period 2008-2012.
The EU Commission's Progress Report towards achieving the Kyoto objectives in the EU and the individual Member States is required under the EU Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Mechanism (Council Decision 280/2004/EC concerning a mechanism for monitoring Community GHG emissions and for implementing the Kyoto Protocol).
Pan European level
The majority of the countries in the Pan European region and the EEC are required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions below levels specified for each of them in the Kyoto Protocol. The individual targets for Annex I Parties are listed in the Kyoto Protocol's Annex B. These should add up to a total cut in greenhouse-gas emissions of at least 5% from 1990 levels in the commitment period 2008-2012.
EU level
For the EU-15 Member States, the targets are those set out in Council Decision 2002/358EC in which Member States agreed that some countries would be allowed to increase their emissions, within limits, provided these are offset by reductions in others.
The EU-15 Kyoto Protocol target for 2008-2012 is a reduction of 8 % from 1990 levels for the basket of six greenhouse gases. For the new Member States, the candidate countries, other EEA member countries, and other Annex 1 countries the targets are included in the Kyoto Protocol.
Overview of national Kyoto targets (reduction from base year levels):
Kyoto Target 2008-2012 | Kyoto Target 2008-2012 | ||
Austria | -13% | Luxembourg | -28.0% |
Belgium | -7.5% | Malta | - |
Bulgaria | -8.0% | Netherlands | -6.0% |
Croatia | -5.0% | Norway | 1.0% |
Czech Republic | -8.0% | Poland | -6.0% |
Cyprus | - | Portugal | +27.0% |
Denmark | -21.0% | Romania | -8.0% |
Estonia | -8.0% | Slovakia | -8.0% |
Finland | 0% | Slovenia | -8.0% |
France | 0% | Spain | +15.0% |
Germany | -21.0% | Sweden | +4.0% |
Greece | +25.0% | Turkey | - |
Hungary | -6.0% | United Kingdom | -12.5% |
Iceland | -10.0% | 15 old EU Member States (EU15) | -8.0% |
Ireland | +13.0% | Belarus | 0 |
Italy | -8.0% | Russian Federation | 0 |
Latvia | -8.0% | Ukraine | 0 |
Liechtenstein | -8.0% | ||
Lithuania | -8.0% |
Non-Annex I countries are not bound to such commitments and do not expect reduction of the GHG emissions.
The post 2012 climate regime will look different compared to Kyoto. In March 2007, the Council of the European Union decided that the EU would make a firm independent commitment to achieving at least a 20 % reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 compared to 1990. On 23 January 2008 the European Commission put forward a package of proposals that will deliver on the European Union's ambitious commitments to fight climate change and promote renewable energy up to 2020 and beyond. In December 2008 the European Parliament and Council reached an agreement on the package that will help transform Europe into a low-carbon economy and increase its energy security. The Package sets a number of targets for EU member states with the ambition to achieve the goal of limiting the rise in global average temperature to 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times including: GHG reduction of 20% compared to 1990 by 2020 (under a satisfactory global climate agreement this could be scaled up to a 30% reduction); 20% reduction in energy consumption through improved energy efficiency, an increase in renewable energy's share to 20% and a 10% share for sustainably produced biofuels and other renewable fuels in transport.
Other related goals and targets:
EU
- max global temperature rise of 2o (EC 6EAP and Councils), meaning global concentrations of less than 450 ppm CO2 equivalent
- for developed countries: 60 to 80% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions (2004 Environment Council)
- global CO2 emissions should decline after 2025, by as much as 50% of 1990 levels (EC 2006 Green paper on energy)
The projections of the acidifying pollutants for this outlook are based on the GAINS (former RAINS) Model. Its European implementation covers 43 countries in Europe including the European part of Russia. GAINS estimates emissions, mitigation potentials and costs for six air pollutants (SO2, NOx, PM, NH3, VOC) and for the six greenhouse gases included in the Kyoto protocol.
The new GAINS model incorporates the latest version of the RAINS-Europe model (Regional Air Pollution Information and Simulation) as it has been prepared and reviewed for the CAFE programme and the 2007 revision of the NEC directive. Emissions of pollutants are calculated as a product of activity level, uncontrolled emission factor, removal efficiency of control technology applied in a given sector, and implementation level of that technology in a given emission scenario.
Overview of the GAINS model
The Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS)-Model provides a consistent framework for the analysis of co-benefits reduction strategies from air pollution and greenhouse gas sources.
The model considers emissions of:
Certain versions of the GAINS Model also contain:
The GAINS Model consists of several screen options, which display information pertaining to:
The GAINS Model simultaneously addresses health and ecosystem impacts of particulate pollution, acidification, eutrophication and tropospheric ozone. Simultaneously, the GAINS Model considers greenhouse gas emission rates and the associated value per ton of CO2 equivalence. Historic emissions of air pollutants and GHGs are estimated for each country based on information collected by available international emission inventories and on national information supplied by individual countries. The GAINS Model assesses emissions on a medium-term time horizon, emission projections are specified in five year intervals through the year 2030.
Options and costs for controlling emissions are represented by several emission reduction technologies. Atmospheric dispersion processes are often modeled exogenously and integrated into the GAINS Model framework. Critical load data and critical level data are often compiled exogenously and incorporated into the GAINS modeling framework.
The model can be operated in the 'scenario analysis' mode, i.e., following the pathways of the emissions from their sources to their impacts. In this case the model provides estimates of regional costs and environmental benefits of alternative emission control strategies. The Model can also operate in the 'optimization mode' which identifies cost-optimal allocations of emission reductions in order to achieve specified deposition levels, concentration targets, or GHG emissions ceilings. The current version of the model can be used for viewing activity levels and emission control strategies, as well as calculating emissions and control costs for those strategies.
The The current version (June 2008) allows access to
For more information see: http://gains.iiasa.ac.at/gains/docu.EU/index.menu?page=448 (requires regstration)
The GAINS model provides a number of Emissions Scenarios (combination of energy pathway and emissions control strategy). The most recent are scenarios developed for the NEC Rpeort #6 for revision of the NEC Directive as of July 2008. This group includes: - Current Policy legislation (i.e., current legislation, compliance with 2010 NEC ceilings in 2020, as well as the Commission proposals on the revision of the IPPC directive and EURO-VI), for - an energy projection that is consistent with option 4 of the Impact Assessment of the Climate & Energy Package, assuming redistribution of non-ETS targets, access to CDM (limiting carbon prices to €30/t CO2 in both the ETS and non-ETS sectors) and meeting the 20% renewable target in a cost-efficient way through trade, combined with the national perspectives on the development of the agricultural sector (C&E Package, current policy), - the NEC 2007 baseline energy projection, i.e., PRIMES baseline projection of November 2007 without further climate measures (NEC2007 baseline, current policy), Furthermore, the group contains the following optimized scenarios, i.e., cost-effective emission ceilings for achieving the environmental targets of the TSAP for - the Climate and Energy Package (C&E Package, OPTV5), - the Climate and Energy Package assuming no trade in renewable energy (C&E Package, no REN, OPTV5), - the Climate and Energy Package assuming (partial) implementation of the recent IMO agreement on emission controls for ships (C&E Package, IMOlight, OPTV5), - the Climate and Energy Package assuming full implementation of the Nitrate Directive (C&E Package + Nitr.Dir. OPTV5), - the Climate and Energy Package assuming that health impacts are only caused by primary PM2.5 emissions (C&E Package+PrimPM2.5, OPTV5), - the Climate and Energy Package for stricter environmental objectives as requested by the European Parliament (C&E Package, EP targets, OPTV5). Full details on these scenarios are available at the NEC report #6.
The predassessor model RAINS calculated global and European emissions for two categories of scenarios: 'current legislation' and 'maximum technically feasible reduction' (MFR) scenarios.
The current legislation (CLE) scenario reflects the current perspectives of individual countries on economic development and takes into account the anticipated effects of presently decided emission control legislation. The 'maximum technically feasible reduction' (MFR) scenario outlines the scope for emission reduction offered by a full implementation of the best available emission control technologies.
The input data for GAINS/RAINS model comes from different international sources as main data sets. National data are used for verification of the international data sources, update and correction of scenarios.
The uncertainty in input parameters showed that the actual uncertainties are critically influenced by the specific situation (pollutant, year, country). Generally, however, the emission factor is an important contributor to the uncertainty in estimates of historical emissions, while uncertainty in the activity data dominates the future estimates.
For more information see http://www.iiasa.ac.at/rains/review/suutari.pdf .
For more information see methodology uncertainty.
No uncertainty has been specified
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/cc_f03-ghg-emissions-outlook-from-iiasa/cc_f03-ghg-emissions-outlook-from or scan the QR code.
PDF generated on 24 Apr 2024, 01:02 PM
Engineered by: EEA Web Team
Software updated on 26 September 2023 08:13 from version 23.8.18
Software version: EEA Plone KGS 23.9.14
Document Actions
Share with others